Electric Monkey Pants

One more reason to hate Dick Cheney (as if I needed more). I was driving back to work after my eye appointment this afternoon when traffic came to a complete stop on 494. I could see up ahead the rode was bare after a certain point. As it became clear that we were stuck on the bridge (over the river), heading west, just before the airport, people started getting out of their cars and chatting. I looked around a bit and I could see police cars’ lights up ahead. It seemed they had cordoned off the whole lane (the other lane was unencumbered).

I started chatting with a middle-aged guy with a cellphone. He told me his buddy said it was Air Force One (or Two or whatever) and that Dick Cheney was in town. This idea was corroborated by other fellow travelers. So basically, Dick Cheney shut down one of the largest freeways in the state for 20 or 30 minutes so that his motorcade could travel unmolested by traffic. Allow me to recap:

Fuck you, Dick Cheney. Fuck You.

How about traveling on the same roads as the rest of us? Here’s an idea: maybe you shouldn’t take a huge motorcade with a limo everywhere! Maybe nobody would notice if you drove around in an old Pinto. But no. Dick Cheney has to emerge from his secure location to lord over the rest of us and show off just how powerful he is. He can shut down a highway, with cars backed up for miles, while he gets his ass chauffeured whereever he wants to go. I’m sure he’s not even driving, so what’s the big deal if there’s traffic? I can’t understand it as anything other than a powerplay on his part. It’s so typical of him to inconvenience thousands of people for nothing.

Granted, this is far from the worst thing he’s done, but it affected me, so it’s on my mind. And it just happened like 30 minutes ago. This is some seriously up-to-the-minute blogging here.

My only regret is that I couldn’t catch up to his motorcade to flip him off as I drove past him at 90 miles an hour, late for work. Fuck you, Cheney.

Update: Here’s a link to the Trib story about Cheney’s arrival.